So who is playing in the bowl this year?

Even though Baylor is the only bowl eligible team out of the 22 teams in the Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences, that didn’t stop one of the Valero Alamo Bowl’s Twitter followers from asking “So who is playing in the bowl this year?”

That’s impossible to tackle in mid-October. However, there are a couple things that are becoming clear in the first year of our new six year deal to match-up the #1 Big 12 team vs. the #1 Pac-12 team after the College Football Playoff (CFP) bowls.

If the season ended today, we could have a choice of nine Top 25 teams to match-up in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Friday, January 2. That’s pretty impressive since having more than one Top 25 teams to pick from each conference has never happened in the Valero Alamo Bowl’s 22 year history.

While exciting games, record viewership and sold-out crowds are common place, the bowl has only featured two Top 25 teams six times and only once in the last five years. With our improved selection rights, Top 25 games will become the rule and not the exception.

And if our Twitter follower wanted to pin me down more, I’d tell him I predicting this year’s game will feature a 10-2 team ranked #14 taking on a 9-3 team ranked #19.

Ironically, three of the eight media projections below feature an unranked UCLA in our game. However, I’m assuming they are predicting a Bruins resurgence where they would leap over #16 Arizona, #17 Arizona State, #20 Utah, #22 USC and #23 Stanford.

Of course when I only have 140 characters to respond, it’s best to answer a question with a question at this point of the year. Who is playing in the bowl? Well, who do you want to see in San Antonio this year?